23 Responses to “Daily Kos Poll of Self-Identified Republicans”

I see this a lot, and it kind of bugs me. The “party of no” talking point is a bit lacking. For one thing, the GOP spent plenty of time voting “yes” during the majority of Bush’s reign. Furthermore, the phrase “party of no” perpetuates the myth that the GOP actually wants small government, and in doing so, plays right into the hands of the Republican party. The Republicans gladly vote “yes” to increasing government control over people’s private lives. Saying “yes” to government intervention in personal matters, such as your love life, as the GOP is wont to do, is hardly indicative of a party that wants to shrink the government. The only way you could realistically claim that the GOP wants to reduce government control over people is if you believe corporations are the only entities entitled to personhood…oh wait.

As for the poll, there is nothing particularly surprising there. If Congressional Democrats are any indication, a poll of self-identified Dems would probably produce similar results, but with more “not sure” responses.

I thought the same thing as I was reading the questions. Give me twenty questions and I could probably make 2000 Democrats look however I wanted. I also wonder after the second or third when did you stop beating your wife question how many of these Republicans got a little rascally with their answers. I got a chuckle out of it though.

There is a an old skit done by a British group that illustrates this kind of push poll I wish I could remember more so I could see if it is on You Tube. One minister is worried that a poll shows people have a certain view on an issue, the other minister tells the first how to write the questions of their own poll so people will give a completely opposite conclusion to the same question. It is really well done.

“I also wonder after the second or third when did you stop beating your wife question how many of these Republicans got a little rascally with their answers.”

Other than the “Jesus Christ/Heaven” question (in so far as the question assumes the responder believes there is a heaven and that Jesus can get one into said place), what other ones qualify as “have you stopped beating your wife”? All the questions seem to be taken directly from slogans/signs at Palin/Teabag gatherings and do not seem to make assumptions like those in the Jesus question.

The results of this poll are largely because of what those people hear on Fox “News”. 80% of their programming is opinion and the viewers don’t have any idea that it is because nobody tells them that it is.

Wasn’t there one that said “do you think women should work in the home”? It’s been a couple days since I looked at it but some of the questions were pretty silly. Don’t get me wrong, there were a few good questions as well, but if I’m taking that poll, once I see where it’s going I’m going to give every neanderthal answer I can think of, hell, they’re going to spin it anyway. Did you read Kos, whatever his name is, give his opinion on it? I mean the guy has the right to his opinion but he is so far off base it’s funny. The whole article was “see, we all knew these guys were from the stone age, this proves it!” yup-er, I guess the science is in on this one too.

NL, ah yeah the do say it’s opinion, pretty open about that, except for the news breaks, the only one I’ve watched that sort of crosses that line is Shep Smith, he kind of does the NPR thing of running news into opinion.

That is still a direct yes/no question. It is not a loaded question. I think the religion one is the only loaded question in the poll. You might think it is insulting, but it is not guilty of the “have you stopped beating your wife?” fallacy. If the question was “Have you started letting your woman work outside the home yet?” then it would be a loaded question.

It also really isn’t a push poll. I doubt Kos conducted the poll with the intention of swaying the participants into supporting the views of Daily Kos. Using the results of the poll to malign the participants is not push polling. Using the questions in the poll to deliberately change the attitudes of those who are participating in the survey would be a push poll. The 2000 Republican primaries can give you a famous example of a push poll.

There are plenty of issues to raise with the poll, but your criticisms seem to be off the mark. For one thing, the sample was assembled out of self-identified Republicans. Relying on self-identification creates a risk of the poll being undermined by individuals claiming to be a Republican and giving “offensive” answers in order to defame the GOP. Something akin to voting as a member of the other party in states with open primaries in order to sway the results of the election (see Limbaugh and the 2008 Dem primaries).

If you really want to criticize the questions, you could also accuse them of being leading. It is almost impossible to create a poll whose questions are not even remotely leading, although the strength of leading claim varies greatly from poll to poll. You could also suggest that acquiescence bias might have played a role in the responses. While the survey does contain both positive and negative keyed questions, it does not use them to test the same material.

Ok, I’ll take that. This is one of those polls that is good entertainment but not very informative for the reasons you state. Your criticisim of the term “push poll” seems to be a difference without distinction but that’s ok you are probably close enough that I won’t argue. I think we can both agree this is a fun poll designed to give the faithful some ammunition. If this were done by Republicans with flip side results Hannity would be pounding every Democrat guest on his show with it for weeks, I suspect Enky will do the same here.

NL,

Your middle paragraph, Hmm, that is interesting, I don’t think they do that but they might. That may also be in the eye of the beholder. For instance, where I can see that happening is if the news says the stock market rose or fell and right after that Cavuto (sp?) went into more depth with what is essenually a stock market report picking out some high points and then went directly into a panel discussion of what is causing the rise/fall which of course would be the opinion of Cavuto or his panel. I have seen that happen on his show and I don’t like it. And you may be right that the evening shows do the same I just havn’t seen it. From what I have seen the news at the bottom or top of the hour is given by somone on a seperate set and then they go back to the opinion host, pretty clean break. Now the host may be talking about the same topic as the news person but I think that is a clean enough break.

On the other hand when you listen to NPR especially someone like Nina Totenberg (sp) she starts her report billed as Supreme Court news and then seamlessly moves into opinion of whatever case she is discussing.

If you listen to fox and hear an example tell me about it I would be interested.

I believe The Daily Show did a segment on what NL is describing. I think it was linked here at some point. Beck will make some claim, like “the stock market fell because Obama is a baby eating socialist.” Later, the news will mention the stock market falling and then use the weaselly phrase “some people say” in order to repeat Beck’s accusation while not actually attributing the claim to any individual.

Ok, yeah I don’t like that, I would want to see the actual clips but I hate it when people do that “some people say” crap. Clarify please, are YOU saying that or are you saying a certain group is saying that. I’m always happy to answer either way but if you think I’m an SOB, call me an SOB, if you are saying Bob thinks I’m an SOB, say “Bob thinks you’re an SOB” Hell, Bob is probably right.

Here is a different video that just features instances of the phrase “some people say”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYA9ufivbDw I don’t think this one is trying to connect the opinion and news side together, it is just highlighting the use of the phrase.

I’ll agree with you that the news people should use something other than “there are some that say” or whatever variation they used. I would rather they say something like “Foghorn Leghorn from the National Rifle Organization or ACLU said…” then if they want to say something like “this sentiment is shared with several other conservative/liberal organizations we called”. I don’t at all agree with Stewart’s take on this however. Sure the opinion and the news guys are talking about the same thing, it’s news. The opinion guys aren’t going to talk about a subject that was hot last year. This subject was certainly hot for a while, on talk radio and in the editorial pages. Sure it may not have been a big deal on NBC, CBS or ABC, but that is one of our gripes is that they don’t cover story we think they should.

The issue isn’t that they are discussing the same topic. The issue is that what is being stated after the news anchors use “some people say” and its derivatives is exactly what was being said by their opinion section the day before. The nebulous “some people” are Beck, O’Reilly, etc. The unattributed sources used by the news are the people hosting the opinion shows. If both the news and the opinion section discussed the same topic, but the news part avoided sneaking in quotes from the opinion section of the network, there would not be a problem. They are sneaking in Beck’s opinion by reporting it as news. Replace “some say” or whatever obfuscating phrases they used with “People hired by this network said” and see if the problem is more apparent.

True, the fault in Stewart’s logic as I see it is he is insinuating that Fox is the only one that was talking about this because his only sample set is Fox and the mass media, in his mind if a select few, CBS, NBC, Time etc. aren’t talking about it and Fox is, Fox is the only one talking about it, but half of America cares about these issues, we are represented by Fox, talk radio, and the internet and all those sources were talking about this issue at the time. But your point is well taken, they should have offered another source reference or said “as reported by Glen Beck…”

“True, the fault in Stewart’s logic as I see it is he is insinuating that Fox is the only one that was talking about this”

That is really a completely different point. The segment had several criticisms of FN, but the only one I have been addressing is the “some people (Glenn Beck) say…” issue.

My only real comment on your criticism is that the Daily Show was discussing news reports, and these “talk radio, and the internet and all those sources were talking about this issue at the time” are not news sources. Remember the news/opinion distinction you brought up in the past?

This is getting fun :-) so the question is; was the story about the kids singing or was the story that people are talking about it? :-) I think we are in agreement on the basics of this subject, that news organizations and politicians and people use this “some people say” to either mask the fact that that is what they personally think or to hide their sources and it is deplorable to me and I think you when they do that. Agreed?

I think Stewart’s point is a good one I just don’t think the choice of examples are good. I think I could make the same film strip using Meet The Press and the Monday evening (or Saturday evening) NBC news program. But this has been a good discussion, let’s not let it deteriorate.

As far as I know, Meet the Press isn’t supposed to be a news program. If you are going to compare Fox’s news programs to Meet the Press, you must concede that Fox’s news programming is actually opinion. I doubt that is a claim you wish to make, so that comparison seems a bit off, eh?

If you think the same is true for NBC Nightly News, you are more than welcome to find examples. I don’t doubt such examples exist, and if they do, I’d imagine you could find some by searching the Media Research Center’s website.

“was the story about the kids singing or was the story that people are talking about it?”

I’m not entirely sure how the distinction you are making here is relevant to the discussion. “People are talking about _____” isn’t really much of a news story, so I would hope the story itself was the event about which people have spoken. However, using unattributed quotes to sneak in opinions that are likely to have come directly from the news organization itself about the event is poor journalism, regardless of the topic. If half the country, as you previously claimed, are concerned about the story, surely FN could have found people who were willing to attach their names to the quotes, thus avoiding this whole problem. At best, it is lazy reporting, at worst, it is deliberately disguising editorial comments produced by the organization as part of the story in order to manipulate the audience. So, I think we are generally in agreement, but I am uncertain of the point you were trying to make with the line I quoted above.

That is what I meant with the Meet the Press comment, MTP is an opinion show that is either a day before or after a news program, I think I could make a video where I would show a news anchor on Saturday or Monday tell a news story and then that same topic using some of the same vernacular being discussed on MTP Sunday morning. I could then make googly eyes if I were as talented as Stewart and get a bunch of laughs from a conservative crowd that NBC was mixing news and commentary using the same words as John. That doesn’t mean that I don’t think commentary doesn’t slip into news casts, it just means I don’t think Stewart’s point proves much.

Take Paul Harvey for instance, he called the show “news and comment” he then mixed the commercial into it so you didn’t know where the news and the comment started and ended and weren’t even really sure when he had transitioned into a commercial, I think Nina Totenburg does something similar but not quite as bad. Shep Smith likewise mixes a little news with a little comment, but what he does is add a lot of comment with his expressions and pauses you would get a completely different view from reading the transcript as watching the show. I view all those as entertainment or commentary with some news tossed in, if a “news” item interests me I look into it further from a more unbiased location.

I just don’t think Stewart’s examples are compelling enough, maybe my threshold is too high but for the claim that Fox, or anyone is mixing commentary and news together I would want it to be by the same person in the same show. I always go back to Huntley Brinkley as a kid. They did the news, went to a commercial, when they came back the bottom of the screen said “commentary” and one of them gave his opinion. If Stewart thought he could get a laugh out of it he could have made the same video using Huntley and Brinkley, but it was plainly stated this was commentary, and it was usually about the last news item. I just think that if you make a clean break between your news show and your opinion show that is enough.

Don’t worry about the “is the story about the kids singing…” in my warped little mind it seemed we were getting into an endless loop where at some point we wouldn’t remember what the subject was.